Letter From Annie

Photo: Amy Perl Photography

Letter from Annie

When I was a kid, all I wanted in life was magic. Just one little tiny magical experience. Preferably featuring time-travel. Or a magical house. Or a twin. And possibly an attic bedroom. Please. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently, it was. I never got any of it, and I was quite bitter about the whole thing, until I began, a few years ago, to write The Magic Half, a story about time-travel, a magic house, twins, an attic bedroom, and some glasses. It was glorious—almost as glorious as experiencing magic itself must be. I loved writing about Miri and Molly and their adventures.

And it turns out that other people loved reading about them. I heard from a lot of happy readers—Yay, Miri and Molly! Boo, Horst and Flo! Sometimes I felt that every single human who had read the book had written to me, too. But they weren’t just writing to me to tell me how happy they were; no, most of them had a motive—they wanted more. They wanted me to get busy and write a sequel.

I was already plenty busy with my pals Ivy and Bean and some Macedonians, and besides that, I had no sequel plans. I had no sequel ideas. I had no intention of writing another book about Miri and Molly.

But one night I awoke with a picture in my mind. It was Molly, standing on empty air as if it were a floor. She turned, disbelief on her face, to look at Miri—and me. All the next day, I thought about that picture, and I began, almost involuntarily, to create a story that would make it happen. Of course it had to be magic, and of course magic has its reasons, and of course Miri and Molly had to figure out how to set things right. Then their brothers Ray and Robbie sneaked in and refused to leave, and a kitten showed up, and—whoops!—I was back in the world I love so much: a world where magic is alive and well and could happen to you.